The Worthless Health Care Debate

Ok. So I am very tired of the Health Care debate. Why? Other than the fact it occupies most of the news, the debate is going nowhere. The main problem I see is that it’s not about health care or the people who need it (all of us).

The debate is about winners and losers. The left needs to win their position because Obama promised he would reform health care during his never ending campaign, because it would be a wonderful tribute to Ted Kennedy, because it would be a great excuse to grow the government and give them one more thing to screw up, because it would help channel money to people who helped Obama get elected, because….

The right needs to stop the left from winning their position because they don’t want Obama to succeed at anything, because they think tax cuts can solve the problem, because they think it’s smart to talk about limiting the government when they are not in control, because it’s one more giant step to socialism, because they don’t want Obama to succeed at anything, because they don’t want Obama to succeed at anything, because….

Let’s face it, this is a huge complex problem. It’s not being attacked as such. There is no one, who has a voice on the issue, talking about how to really solve the problem in such a way that the result is everyone entitled to health care in this country can attain it. They can’t even agree on who is entitled to health care. That has to do with the definition of illegal (a term that used to be in the dictionary). It also has to do with the definition of who is worth the effort (a term that can’t be defined in a dictionary).

My view is that there are many approaches to solving this problem. No valid approach starts with writing a 1000+ page document that the people who are participating in the debate won’t read and possibly don’t have the capacity to understand if they did read it. The way to attack the problem requires a non-political decision to determine what’s broken, what’s not broken, what’s been addressed, and what’s not been addressed. It can’t be about fulfilling promises to constituents, about being re-elected, about getting someone else unelected. It has to be based on the agreement that the U.S. has been and will continue to be a special place to live and that as a special place high quality health care must be available to everyone.

I have more to say about this so I’ll do a follow-up post or provide comments in a discussion on the subject.